


Chorus After Chorus

by theydonotmove



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dolores With An 'O', Epistolary, F/M, Love Letters, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27338401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theydonotmove/pseuds/theydonotmove
Summary: Just imagine eyes like moonriseA voice like music, lips like wineA selection of love letters and other correspondence from a Mr. Five Hargreeves addressed to one Mrs. Dolores Hargreeves, among others, dated from July 1937 to August 2063.
Relationships: Dolores/Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 47





	Chorus After Chorus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Melivian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melivian/gifts).



> Thanks to Daisy and Nucci for cheerleading and Mina for saddling me with this brainworm.
> 
> Title from ["Dolores" by Frank Sinatra](https://youtu.be/7mahEE3GU5U)

_~~April 5, 2019~~ _

~~Dear Vanya,~~

~~Why can’t I find y~~

* * *

_~~April 6, 2019~~ _

~~Dear Ben,~~

~~Where are~~

* * *

_~~September 22, 2019~~ _

~~Dear Dad,~~

~~You were r~~

* * *

_~~September 24, 2019~~ _

~~Dear Dad,~~

* * *

_September 27, 2019_

Father,

Fuck you.

Sincerely,  
Number Five

* * *

_~~October 1, 2019~~ _

~~Dear Vanya,~~

~~Happy birthd~~

* * *

_October 1, 2020_

Dear Luther,

Is this what you were leading us into, Number One?

Happy birthday.

Number Five

* * *

_March 22, 2021_

Dear Vanya,

~~I found your book today.~~

Do you remember what father said to you when he found the marker-ink umbrella on your arm?

_“Delusion is antithetical to survival, Number Seven. Only the weak live in a reality not their own.”_

In the moment, I thought those words would be the second thing to indelibly mark me that day. What a conviction! We, the Umbrella Academy, lived in a reality beyond the understanding of those outside it and we were stronger for it!

You looked at the floor (never one for tears), told father you understood, and excused yourself to rinse off the ink. You, our clever sister who wore the same uniform we all did, used soap and water to scrub away the mark that would follow the rest of us to our deaths. I knew then, in that simple moment, that he was wrong. I realised for the first time that Father’s lessons were more akin to your tattoo than mine.

Delusion is not antithetical to survival - it is paramount to it. It was the delusion of grandeur, after all, that kept the Academy thriving. It was the delusion that one day you would truly be a part of it that kept you from completely succumbing to the weight of isolation.

It is working from that axiom that I say: Somewhere, on the other side of the globe and too far for me to reach, there is civilization. It is small and rustic, but it is thriving. It is there that you are safe and well-cared for. You spend your days composing and nurturing your community. You have found a family that deserves you.

Your brother,  
Five

* * *

_October 1, 2021_

Dear Ben,

Did you ever finish that Lovecraft collection? I can’t say I’d blame you if you didn’t. I ran across a mostly intact copy in the library and thought of how you were so intrigued and so viscerally repulsed at some of the more-familiar themes all at once. It made me wonder if you had the chance to dig back in ~~before you~~ after I left.

Happy birthday.

Your brother,  
Five

* * *

_October 1, 2022_

Dear Diego,

I’m sure dad is embarrassed by your vigilantism. According to Vanya’s book, you are doing exactly what he trained you for just not in the ways he wants you to. Remind me how this is better than Luther’s path?

Happy birthday.

A fellow embarrassment,  
Number Five

* * *

_October 1, 2023_

Dear Allison,

Happy birthday.

I know it’s callous, but I can’t help but consider which of you would do best here with me in this wasteland. The answer shifts - depending on mood, depending on circumstance ~~, depending on who I wish I could talk to~~. Currently, you’re winning the worst game of MASH ever conceived.

Dad was always pushing our brothers to do more, to be more, as if there was something there just below the surface that they were willfully ignoring. (We know that’s true for Klaus and Ben. Luther and Diego? I’m not convinced.) You and I, however, could always see beyond the end of our tether only to be yanked backward with a choke chain. He was a coward who was afraid his favourite daughter would turn on him. Did you think of that as you rumoured your way to fame and fortune and a family of your own?

I don’t know that your powers would be much use here. Maybe you could at least make things less agonizingly boring - convince me of anything that would break this monotony. Maybe you heard a rumour that this quarter of a mannequin I found at Gimbel’s last week was a real person. Maybe you heard a rumour the last of this canned corn tasted like filet mignon.

Despite our brothers having more practical powers for this situation, it’s still you I’d choose to have at my side at this moment. You know what the leash feels like when it snaps and you’d never clamber to get back on it.

Your brother,  
Five

* * *

_December 3, 2023_

Dear Dolores,

It was a pleasure making your acquaintance today. I must admit, I have admired you from afar for months now. It seems we may be somewhat stuck together but I am charmed to have your company, nonetheless. Would you do me the honour of joining me for dinner this evening? My hope is that good conversation may outweigh a lackluster meal.

Awaiting your response,  
Number Five

P.S. My apologies - I thought this paper was blank. What you see on the reverse are calculations for my return home.

* * *

_February 29, 2024_

Dear Dolores,

I am writing to thank you for your company the last few months. Your insights to my calculations have proven invaluable (thank you again for reminding me of the leap year, that could have been disastrous). I hope you know I hold you in the highest regard.

Your friend,  
Number Five

* * *

_October 1, 2024_

Dear Klaus,

~~Do you find it strangely lonely to speak to people who aren’t there?~~

There’s some freedom in being the family disappointment. I know I got a portrait and you got a dissolved trust fund, but the end result was the same: isolation, destitution, an escape from obligation.

Happy birthday.

Number Five

* * *

_January 1, 2025_

Dear Dolores,

~~If you were real~~

~~Does it make me crazy if~~

I am so glad to be entering the new year with you at my side. Thank you for keeping me warm through this dark winter.

Yours,  
Number Five

* * *

_July 15, 2025_

Dolores,

I am getting closer. I just know I am a few equations away from returning to my family.

I can’t wait for you to meet them.

Number Five

* * *

_August 3, 2025_

Dear Dolores,

What am I doing wrong?

I have read every book on physics, both fact and fiction, left intact in this goddamn library and I still cannot travel backward through time. Between the two of us, we should be able to figure out how to get home. The idea we can’t is maddening.

Time travel is travel, like any other. Long ago, a progenitor of our species stood upright for the first time and looked ahead to the horizon, designs on where he would go and how fast he could get there. As soon as our species could stand upright, we wanted to travel, to run. So we did, tirelessly, as far as we could get. Eventually, we trained animals to run for us. We ran faster and further than before. We invented the wheel, the cart, the automobile. We replaced beast with engine and it was only a matter of time before we took flight. But, Dolores, while most humans are still that first man, traveling through time on foot, we have access to an airplane. All we need is the right math to fly it.

We will keep trying, my love. We will make it.

Yours,  
Number Five

* * *

_October 1, 2025_

Dear Dolores,

Thank you for the birthday wishes, sweetheart; I can see this is not an argument I’m going to win. While I maintain that the celebration of birthdays is intended as a marker of years in existence, I concede that this is the anniversary of the date of my birth.

As children, our birthday was certainly not a day off - there was training, and chores, and studies like any other day - but, if Allison asked sweetly enough and Klaus behaved long enough, our father would let Grace cook us a special meal and let us have the evening to ourselves.

Luther, predictably, would try to corral us into what amounted to gamified versions of father’s lesson plans: races, round robin sparring matches, even our own version of a science fair. But, more often than not, we would settle on something more frivolous, more… joyful. Some years it took on structure: truth or dare (Luther blushing furiously at every truth, Diego never choosing anything but dare), hide-and-go-seek (Ben always hiding with Klaus, the rest of us pretending Ben was the one who was afraid to be alone), duck, duck, goose (no one ever picking me, Vanya flinching anytime someone picked her). Other years it didn’t take on any parameters at all. We simply played. Those are the few times I can remember playing pretend, the few times I can remember laughing without restraint.

Thank you for reminding me of those times.

Yours,  
Number Five

P.S. Going by your logic, today is my 36th birthday, making me entirely too old for you. If you’d like to celebrate the birthday of a young man in his prime, I’ll be turning 20 in February.

* * *

_April 1, 2033_

Dear Dolores,

Would you laugh if I asked you to marry me? You, being who you are, and I, being who I am, seem to be a perfect match. Do you need convincing?

Quite literally the Last Man on Earth,  
Number Five

* * *

_April 2, 2033_

Dear Dolores,

No, that wasn’t an April Fool’s joke and no, that wasn’t the proposal. It was just the idea of one.

Yes, I’ll “do it properly” next time.

Fondly exasperated,  
Number Five

* * *

_May 12, 2033_

Dear Dolores,

(This is me “doing it properly.”)

When I say I am the last man on earth, sure, I say it with self-deprecation. Why else would you love me, unless given no other choice? I am caustic and argumentative. When you point out my flaws I am defensive, sometimes downright catty, which, granted, is an absurd reaction given the source.

But know this: I haven’t chosen you to love for the reason you suspect.

You allowed me to hold your hand through the dehydration and the hunger pangs. You let me rest on your shoulder in the evenings. And though I know it is my only option, it is still enough. To know that you love me, is still enough. I may die here (don’t scold me for saying so, it’s simple fact) and you, or at least some part of you, will go on without me. Without me, you would sit happily in a department store display until the sun inevitably makes its way through the thinning atmosphere and this world finally burns.

Without you, I would be buried in ash.

I am cracked at the edges, crumbling in the post-apocalyptic heat, but with you at my side I am somehow still whole. It is your presence that tethers me to the rim of sanity and allows me to feel the one emotion there is left worthy of feeling: hope. Hope that I can get us out of here. Hope that I can save my family, the world. Hope, at the very least, that the next intact building we find will contain some goddamn scotch.

I know this is a lot to ask of you but I also know it is a burden you are suited to shoulder. Please believe that I would do anything for you in return. I owe you my life and that is not a debt I take lightly.

Each day I know the sun will set and this is how I love you. With certainty. Finality. Inevitability. And somehow. Somehow it rises. This is your love for me. Hopeful. Essential. Fragile.

And so, I must ask: Dolores Gimbel, will you marry me?

Once again awaiting your response,  
Number Five

* * *

_October 1, 2033_

Dear Grace,

I suppose sons always grow up wanting to marry their mothers.

I guess it fits that I’d grow up to marry a beautiful woman who wasn’t quite… Well. As you may have guessed, I am writing to tell you I am getting married. She is brave and beautiful. She doesn’t let me get away with shit. You’d like her. I really think you would.

She’s also… she’s a lot like you in ways you might not be able to understand. I’m afraid that makes me a lot like him in ways I don’t want to understand. She wants what I want and isn’t that every man’s dream? To find a partner that supports them in all things?

But she challenges me too, mom. She seems to find my flaws in ways I can’t outright. She notices the errors in my calculations, reminds me when I forget to eat, when I forget to sleep… Much like you.

(Freud would have a field day, huh?)

Still, I don’t think Dolores is to me what you were to Reginald. You were many things - his nanny, maid, cook. But were you his wife? I am realizing I never thought to ask. As a child, that’s what you assume. Your mother and father must love each other, right? But any love you had for him was only love Reginald had for himself.

It’s a miracle Dolores loves me at all.

Is this what you pictured for me? Were you capable of picturing any of our futures? My best guess is no. If, somehow, your programming extended that far, I imagine you pictured our future quite differently. No individual futures at all. Just one unified future orchestrated by your master. Seven little puppets on strings, marching toward our destiny: saving the world.

We failed, mom. Did you picture that?

~~Did you miss me after I~~

Did you grieve when Ben died? Is that something your programming allowed? Did you wail, like a mother should? Did that bastard give you even a day to mourn the loss of your son? Vanya writes that you were his attending surgeon. Did his blood bother you? Did it stain your dress?

I wasn’t there to stop it either, mom. I wasn’t…

Here is where I tell you to give my best to Pogo and to await a save the date card in the mail.

Sincerely,  
Number Five

* * *

_~~December 3, 2033~~ _

~~Dear Vanya,~~

~~I got married today,~~

* * *

_December 3, 2043_

Dear Dolores,

Happy anniversary, darling.

I know you don’t put much stock in what is traditional. In many ways, that makes me a lucky man. There is not a lot I can provide you in the way of traditions. I couldn’t offer you a diamond ring, a white picket fence, or a happily ever after. Hell, it wasn’t even so much a wedding as it was a few words exchanged and a first dance.

However, I recall reading that the traditional gift for a tenth anniversary is tin and, well, that we have in abundance. It’s not perfect, by any means, but I molded it the best I can not to hurt you.

Dolores, will you accept my ring, ten years late though it may be?

Yours,  
Number Five

* * *

_August 20, 2063_

My Dolores,

I received an offer today. We both know I have to take it.

I could say I don’t have a choice, but that would be a lie. There is always a choice, even if I am manacled in a life boat and you are lashed to the mast of the sinking ship. If there wasn’t the chance I could find a way to my family, I would throw myself overboard to join you.

She’ll be back in an hour. Though, for her I suspect it’ll be a quicker trip. She didn’t want me to be alone with this decision for long. As little as I trust her, she seems to know not to trust me and I can’t help but respect her for that.

So, with a decision made and nothing else to be done, I suppose the only thing to use this time for is goodbye. Will you sit with me, my love, one last time? Admire the orange glow of the sun, tucked under my arm like nothing has changed?

You won’t believe me, if I say I’m sorry. You know me too well for that.

Yours,  
Number Five

* * *

_July 2, 1937_

Dearest Dolores,

One last letter, my love. Indulge me just once more.

I am writing to you on assignment from the day an aviator named Amelia Earhart disappears. It has been eight months since I left you in the ruins of the library. You were turned away as I left and I cannot blame you. If you could see me now, you’d turn away still. What I do here, for The Commission, is in the name of a timeline that results in the destruction of everything we fought to restore. I have stopped counting how many of my bullets hit the mark. We both know that’s not the number that matters.

Now that I have left you, I feel truly alone for the first time in years. I can hear you call me a sentimental old fool, but long before I was sentimental or old (again, I hear you say I was always a fool) I knew that living without you would be damn near impossible. Without you bending my ear, I’m afraid there is nothing left to tell me when to stop.

I sat down today to write you a eulogy, but I realize now that I’m not sure which of us has passed away. You are the one left to live out an existence alone; I am the one to have slipped out of the reality we built together and into another entirely. There is a case to be made that I have “gone to a better place” and left you a widow. Why, then, am I the one left with the grief?

The Commission will never allow me to see my family again. Somehow, they are all wrapped into the Apocalypse. And the Apocalypse must always happen. I have made it out, but years of service stretch out before me and I may still never make it home. This is our dearest hope made true with a genie’s twist.

I know you don’t appreciate the fine line between lies of betrayal and lies of comfort. I know you would prefer the harsh truth to any lie I could tell you. But for me, my love, let me tell these last few lies. Let me give you words of comfort that we may both cling to.

The lies are as follows: I will escort Ms. Earhart from her plane and place her safely in the timeline to live out the rest of her days. I will find a way to my family, they will survive, and we will save the world. I will return to you and you will be warm and safe in my arms.

Yours always,  
Number Five

**Author's Note:**

> If you're over 18, come join us on the TUA discord server [Elliott's House!!](https://discord.gg/cXHwSQq4am)


End file.
